Pitfalls in Church Planting: Click | View Series

You need to define for your church its open- and closed-handed issues early because they will all be tested. Determine which theological issues you are willing to lose people over and which issues you are not. These will help you decide which issues are closed-handed for you. Those things should be decided early and written down! If they’re only in your head, they don’t exist.

Get It On Paper

Create a document so it can act as an objective third party. This way people don’t have theological disagreements with the pastor, they have theological misalignments with the church. When your church is small, you don’t want people to come in a stand against the pastor. It’s too subjective and even when you win an argument, you lose people. When the church takes a stand on paper, there is no argument, only teaching and guiding. Use a good, biblical, well-thought out Statement of Faith to ward off wolves and false teachers.

In conclusion, plant more churches. Join a strong, bible-teaching network and get to work. There are estimated 120 million non-Christians in the United States of America, which makes us the fourth largest mission field in the world, according to The Lutheran. We need more gospel-centered, theologically sound, missional churches. Join the fight.

Trial Study Guide:

Get the companion study guide to Pastor Mark's latest sermon series in downloadable PDF form. Find out more.

Pitfalls in Church Planting Click | View Series

Almost every lead pastor I know deals significantly with loneliness. I think the struggle is even more difficult for church planters. The move from staff person to lead pastor is huge, and the move from layperson to lead pastor is even greater. All of a sudden you find yourself at the top of an organization, and the people closest to you either work for you or spiritually depend on you. This puts you in a very strange social environment. Unless you go into the church planting process ready for this, it can really be an issue.

The Pressure

Recent statistics from the Schaeffer Institute show that up to 70 percent of pastors regularly fight depression. The same study asked 808 pastors about the quality of their marriage, and 77 percent of them said their marriage was “not good.” I believe most of these issues would be solved if pastors lived in the biblical community we urge our people to find.

What many pastors don’t realize is the social toll this new life will take on them and their family. Most pastors work alone, and this is especially true for church planters. "In 70 percent of the churches in America, the pastor is the only full-time staff person. In this environment the pastor is often expected to be omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient," stated Thom S. Rainer, founder of The Rainer Group, and recently elected president-candidate of LifeWay Christian Bookstores.

Make Community a Priority

Church planters and pastors must make biblical, life-giving community a real priority. Proverbs 18:1 says, “Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment.” As pastors, we cannot buy the lie that we don’t need the community our people need. Our enemy, the Devil, loves it when church planters/pastors isolate themselves. We become easy prey when we try to stand alone. Our wives and children become easy prey when we try to make them stand alone. Build a strong community for your family.

To be continued.

Vintage Church:

In this book, Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears discuss the essentials of what it means to be a biblical church. Find out more.

Part of the Pitfalls in Church Planting series.
Continued from Pitfalls in Church Planting: No Accountability.

Most church planters have grossly underestimated the importance of a permanent building. Churches used to be able to plant in a school and spend the first few years growing to a size of 400-500 before they even attempted to build anything or move into a building. Well, times are much different. In most cities you can no longer rent high school auditoriums, so the only spaces available are elementary or junior high school cafeterias. This space only holds around 100-150 people and provides little to no space for children.

Get an Intermediate Location

Instead of planning on growing your church to 400-500 and then building, church planters must find an intermediate location as they get to that goal. This could be 6000-7000 square feet of office space or storefront that used to be retail. You don't have to own it or build it, but you need to get serious about finding a location where people can come to you and know you'll be there every week.

Most churches double in size the weekend they move from being mobile to a more permanent building. People are also less prone to give faithfully to a church that's mobile. They don't know if it will be there in two months, so why sacrifice? But with a permanent location, you have much more credibility with attendees and the city you are trying to reach.

To be continued.

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Part of the Pitfalls in Church Planting series.
Continued from Pitfalls in Church Planting: Focus.

Planting a church is very dangerous for you and your family spiritually and morally. The time and pressure takes a toll on church planters, so good, safe, and humble accountability is essential to walking with integrity and honoring God. Moving to the top of an organizational chart should be done with strong accountability in place, or the devil will eat you alive.

Entitlement

One of the biggest issues you should watch for is a feeling of entitlement. It’s the feeling that you do so much and work so hard that you deserve a little something extra. Or maybe you deserve a certain respite from the moral standards you would place on others. Lots of church planters end up drinking too much or dealing with pornography because they are at the top of the leadership paradigm with no one to hold them accountable. Find elders from a sending church or other church planters to help you out in this way.

Protection for Your Soul

More important than delivering a great sermon to your people is becoming a great man for your people. Bishop Quayle says, “Preaching is not the art of making a sermon and delivering it. Preaching is the art of making a preacher and delivering him.” That doesn’t happen without help. Your church plant will be an agent of sanctification. The Lord will use it to refine you, break you, and put you back together. Accountability protects you from being disqualified in the process. Having a safe place to be held accountable is protection for your soul. It’s like holding a shield out in front of your character.

For our staff we use accountability forms that are filled out weekly (most weeks). Our staff knows that they will not be fired for anything they write down on that form. If you confess struggles and sin, then you will be protected and restored. If you get busted, then you will be removed and restored. Build a culture of confession and restoration for you and your team.

To be continued.

Vintage Church:

In this book, Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears discuss the essentials of what it means to be a biblical church. Find out more.

Part of the Pitfalls in Church Planting series.

Continued from Pitfalls in Church Planting: Leadership, Part 2.

Many church planters have professional ADD. Every time you talk with a church planter he has a new idea, new program, and maybe a new calling. Church planters need to be focused.

Design a Game Plan

Football coaches have a game plan for every game. They start the game with the first 30 plays scripted because they know when they walk out of that tunnel, 90,000 people will be screaming at them to do something different. The script helps them stay focused on what they know will work. It keeps them from overreacting and allowing the fans to dictate the team.

Pastors should have a little of this coaching mentality: design a game plan and stay focused. Before you begin getting emails demanding certain programs, and before you start getting phone calls about changing the worship style, come up with a game plan. Make those decisions before you walk into the stadium. If you don’t, you will allow the spiritually immature to dictate what the spiritually mature should do, and the church will suffer greatly.

Stay Focused

Many planters also get caught up in building their influence instead of building their church. So they blog more than they study, they travel more than they should, and their church suffers. Stay focused on the task God has called you to, and build your church, not your influence. Don’t blog in the first years unless it has missional value. Don’t travel in the first few years unless it has missional value. Early on, you cannot afford to spread yourself too thin.

To be continued.

Trial Study Guide:

Get the companion study guide to Pastor Mark's latest sermon series in downloadable PDF form. Find out more.

Part of the Pitfalls in Church Planting series.
Continued from Pitfalls in Church Planting: Leadership, Part 1.

Another key level of leadership is staffing. In the beginning, you should concentrate on hiring the right staff positions. You need to build your staff based on the needs of your community and culture, not a typical church planting structure.

Figure Out Your Context

Every church planter hires the same people in the same order. First it’s the worship leader, then a small groups leader, and so on. You should take a hard look at the needs of your church and culture. In our culture, the suburban mecca of Frisco, Texas, I should not have hired a worship leader first. I should have hired someone to organize and lead a dynamic children’s program. We run one child for every two adults. (That’s a lot of kids.) I can hire a band to come in and lead worship for 15 minutes every week, but good help for children isn’t as easy to outsource. Let your culture speak into your staffing strategy.

Hire the Right People

Then, as quickly as you can, move on to hiring the right people, not just the positions you think you need. Our elders have a saying when we’re staffing: “We’ll take one ‘A’ player over three ‘C’ players.” Instead of hiring someone to lead home groups, can you hire the right guy who can do multiple jobs?

In the beginning you also want to hire, almost exclusively, self-starters in your church plant. Until you get to a size where you can hire good managers, you will need people who can survive doing ministry with little resources, little direct coaching, or an as-yet undefined plan. If you just hire good people who can’t self-motivate and self-start, you will spend all your time keeping your staff happy and not moving the mission forward.

Focus Your Energy

Church planters should also consider “outsourcing” as much as possible. You can outsource missions, counseling, finance, and web/technology in the first few years. You should concentrate on what is most important. You will be in a constant battle trying to figure out how and where to invest time and energy. You should be doing that which provides the greatest return for your investment. There will be a time for you to become a specialist and write a treatise on divorce and remarriage, but for now steal that from another church and figure out how to get a building!

To be continued.

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Continued from Pitfalls in Church Planting: Finances.

Leadership is one of the biggest pitfalls in church planting because the effects of leadership are so pronounced. Good leaders brighten your church-planting world. Good leaders can overcome a lack of resources, difficult situations or limited staffing. Similarly, bad leaders can’t win a fixed game. With bad leaders you can’t raise enough money or gather enough people to plant a strong church. Finding good leaders for every level of your church is key to planting well. Let’s take a look at two key levels: elders and staff.

Installing Elders

Every planter is frantically looking for teammates and help as he plants the church, but don’t install elders too quickly. This usually leads to hiring people who are not qualified or ready to lead, or giving authority to people who are not completely in sync with your mission and values. I know a church planter in North Carolina who hastily installed a group of elders who proceeded to fire him in their first elders’ meeting. Your first elders should be picked with almost as much care as your wife (unless you got married in Vegas)!

A Distinct Call

Your elders should feel a distinct call to pastor “your church,” not just “a church.” When you plant your church, it should be because you heard a distinct call from God to do so. Your elders should have had a similar experience. Lots of guys install their closest friends as elders, but don’t assume that someone else has experienced that call just because they like you and want to do ministry. Your best friend may not be called to your church, and he may not know it until he’s been there a year or so. If you’ve given him the title of elder, it will be a major ordeal if he needs to leave. Give him a staff role or a seat on the leadership team, but don’t give away the title of elder lightly.

Be slow to give power and authority, and be quick to take it away (1 Tim. 5:22). A man should be tested and approved in your church before you give the title of elder to him.

To be continued.

Advance Conference:

Advance is coming June 2009. The Resurgence is hosting this conference in Raleigh, NC, to provision the local church for the advance of the gospel. Find out more.

There are some common pitfalls that church planters face in the first few years. These are not the fantastic or extraordinary pitfalls like sin, betrayal, addiction, or church-splitting, but normative pitfalls that almost every church planter deals with. My hope is that you will be helped to avoid some of these and encouraged that you are not alone when you do face them.

The pitfalls listed assume you've clarified your calling and location and are on your way to planting. The most common pitfall we see with Acts 29 applicants is men who are really excited about church planting and gifted for ministry but not called to plant a church. If you do not sense a distinct call to plant a church then that will be your biggest pitfall. If you're not called to plant a church, go to one of the hundreds of good churches looking for staff people and give your life away there. But assuming your calling is sure and you have a city in mind, these are things to watch for.

The First Pitfall: Finances

As a church planter, you have to realize that you are the primary provider for your church.

Yes, Jesus provides for his church and God is the giver of all good things, but you must take ownership of the fund-raising task. Most guys find that the most stressful part of church planting is fund-raising. You will need to personally raise funds in addition to teaching your core group to give faithfully and sacrificially. Finances are a primary limiting factor for ministry. Finances are the difference between your being bi-vocational or full-time, finding a permanent location or being mobile, having a great children's ministry or baby-sitting. Every planter I know goes through some form of financial struggle. So how can you deal with it?

You Are the Fundraiser

You must accept your role as lead fundraiser. The lead pastor acts as the provider for the church and its ministries. It is your job to go out and get the money and resources needed to continue the mission. Most planters clearly see their role as preacher, leader, and counselor but never take into account their role as fundraiser or provider, and it is crucial in the planting stage.

Have a Plan

It also needs to be said that every church plant should have a financial plan written down and have someone to manage it. Understand that financially, your church plant is a small business and needs to be managed well. This is key for gaining and keeping outside donors and protecting the credibility of your church among new people and members.

Protect Your Integrity

When you or your elders have developed and written out a plan (budget, priority spending, etc.), then you should hand it off to someone else to manage. As a lead pastor/church planter you should not give yourself the power to write checks, make changes to the budget, or affect financial records in any way. This is not because church planters are thieves and have a history of spending offerings on Cheetos and new cars, but because it will go a long way in protecting your integrity. Setting up layers of accountability from day one is essential. You have enough to worry about without dealing with accusations that come from poor planning and weak financial structures.

To be continued.

Vintage Church:

In this book, Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears discuss the essentials of what it means to be a biblical church. Find out more.